goodmedicine

I've been feeling for a while that my meditation practice has become a bit 'routine'. I sit 'meditating' with Catero, my wife, most mornings for about 15 minutes and then, over the course of the day, I typically 'sprinkle in' another three or so brief walking meditation practices. It's fine. I've been meditating regularly since 1970 - over 55 years - and my practice has varied over this time, using different approaches and different durations. I've taught forms of meditation too and attended a series of retreats.

I thought I might give my practice a bit of a 'wash and brush-up' recently, so I actually paid for an eight-week online course that is due to start this week. And then I realised that I also want to ask much more foundational questions as well as potentially revitalise my practice. Questions like 'why meditate in the first place?' and if one is going to meditate 'why choose one type of meditation over another?'. And, if there's a decision to go ahead with a particular meditation form, what about 'dose/duration/frequency' and other related practices like gratitude, savouring and more?

And what am I referring to when I ask 'Why meditate?'. Currently mindfulness practices are having their time in the sun. In years gone by, transcendental meditation ... with its Beatles associations ... was all the rage. Earlier than that we had the development of progressive muscular relaxation. Now a variety of breathing approaches are also being used more widely. And there are yoga practices, autogenics, imagery forms, self-hypnosis, non-dual insights, movement methods and more!

And when I ask 'Why meditate?', many current responses would focus on exploring whether meditation can help with forms of psychological & physical suffering. And this has a long tradition. After all the the Buddhist four noble truths are about how humans suffer in their lives and how this can be eased. And other spiritual traditions too, speak about suffering and 'sin' and how to be 'saved'.

More to follow ...